The revelation had come as a shock, of course. Even Rose, who had been adamant the whole time about the idea that they were long-lost sisters, seemed a bit stunned once the proof was actually staring her in the face. Nonetheless, the girls were practically inseparable after that, peppering each other constantly with questions about the parent they had never known, and what life was like on opposite sides of the ocean.

They had made a pact, however, not to confront their parents about things via owl. It was obviously a delicate situation, and probably had been for the last eleven years, if not longer. Holly was planning to gently bring up the subject of her father to her mother over Christmas, and let the conversation build from there, while Rose was favoring a more direct approach with her dad, wanting to confront him about it as soon as she set foot in her house.

"That's the stupidest thing you've ever said. You're going to make him mad," Holly warned over dinner, as they discussed their upcoming end-of-term exams and the Christmas holidays that would follow shortly after.

"I could never," Rose retorted.

"I'm just saying. What if one of them decides to pull us from Beauxbatons or something, once they find out? Then we won't get to see each other, and we'll never get to know them."

Rose gasped dramatically. "Holly, you're a genius!"

"I know, but why?"

Rose shoved her papers to the side and leaned forward on the table excitedly. "You want to get to know Dad, right?" Holly nodded. "And I'm dying to know Mum. So, what if, over Christmas holidays, we just...switch places?"

Holly raised her eyebrows skeptically. "Switch places?"

"Sure! When everyone heads off for the hols, I'll go back to New York as you, and you go back to London as me."

"Okay, I take it back. That is the stupidest thing you've ever said." Holly bent her head back to her potions book, but Rose pulled it out from under her nose. "Hey!"

"Think about it! It's only for a couple of weeks. And we can pull it off. We're twins, aren't we?"

"Rose." Holly leaned forward and adopted her most serious tone. "Christmas is in less than three weeks. It'll take me that long just to learn all of your cousins' names."

"Our cousins," Rose corrected.

"Right. Not to mention the accents. How are you going to get my weird American-English hybrid down in just three weeks?"

"Oh please, I can do you already." Rose cleared her throat and repeated, in a startlingly accurate impression of Holly's voice, "That is the stupidest thing you've ever said."

"Okay, what about Quidditch? You keep going on and on about this Weasley family match that you play every year on Boxing Day. I hate flying."

Rose pondered this for a moment. "We'll say you—I, rather—slipped on some ice and hurt my ankle. We can transfigure something to look like a cast, so you won't have to play. Because you're right, your rubbish flying skills would be a dead giveaway. Anything else?"

"I'm sure I'll come up with something. Because there's no way this is going to work."


Hermione leaned against the platform wall in the Gare du Nord, one hand on her coffee and one hand on her suitcase. The train from Beauxbatons was due any minute now, and she was itching to see Holly. Her daughter had been very specific in her last letter about meeting her at platform one, on the muggle side—some first-year Beauxbatons tradition, she'd said—and Hermione was now anxiously scanning the crowd for her daughter's bright red hair.

She and Holly spotted each other at the same time, and Hermione grinned. "Hi, darling!" she called, and Holly burst into an excited run towards her, dropping her trunk in the process. "Holly, your trunk," Hermione protested, but Holly either hadn't noticed or didn't care as she crashed into her mother and held her tightly. "Oh, I missed you too, love, but we've got to grab your trunk." She was met with some resistance as she set Holly at arm's length, and was startled to realize that her daughter's lovely blue eyes were watering. "What's the matter?" Hermione asked urgently, holding Holly's face between her hands and giving her a quick look.

"I just—missed you so much. Mum." Holly sniffled and wiped at her eyes. She wasn't normally so emotional, but Hermione realized that as strong as she was, it would have still been hard on Holly to be away from home for the first time. She hoped then that her surprise would still be a good one.

"Well, grab your trunk. We've got another train to catch." Holly quirked an eyebrow at her. "We're spending Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa. I hope that's okay."

"You mean...we're not going to New York?" Holly asked, and there was an odd sort of longing on her face as she followed Hermione back to her abandoned trunk.

"Eventually, but we're spending the first two weeks of your holiday in London. Won't that be wonderful? We haven't seen the house since Grandma and Grandpa redid the living room. I think I can even pull some strings to get their new fireplace connected to the Floo Network, can you imagine?" Holly was staring wordlessly at Hermione, who patted anxiously at her coat under the scrutiny. "Have I spilled coffee on myself or something?"

Holly shook her head. "It's just been so long since I've seen you."

Hermione wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed her forehead. "Well, we've plenty of time to catch up on the train. As long as we don't miss it." She smiled and steered Holly along the platform, their luggage clattering behind them.


Rose had assured Holly that their father would be easy to spot, that he stood out in any crowd, but the man was still a stranger to her, and she wasn't confident that she wouldn't accidentally go barreling into the wrong redhead. They—well, Rose and their dad—had arranged a specific meeting place of muggle platform twelve, chosen because it was the exact opposite end of the train station from the specific meeting place that Holly had arranged for Rose-as-Holly and their mother. After all, the last thing they needed was for their parents to run into each other in the Gare du Nord and ruin the plan before it even got started.

"Rosie!" Holly turned sharply and sure enough, there was, no doubt about it, her dad. Rose had said he was tall, but he was tall, and his goofy grin was unmistakable from Rose's pictures. Holly wanted to run to him, but as they had discussed, she was wearing a transfigured foot brace to keep herself out of family Quidditch.

Ron wrapped her up in a tight hug when he reached her and Holly willed herself not to cry as she greeted him. "Hi, Dad." The word felt foreign on her tongue, and the fake English accent made it even worse. In spite of that, she wasn't sure she'd ever been more excited about something. She was with her dad. Finally.

"What'd you do to your foot, love?" Ron asked as he heaved her trunk up in one hand and put his other arm around her, steering her towards the station exit.

"I slipped on some ice in the courtyard," Holly said as rehearsed. "The matron says it'll be fine, but I won't be able to play Quidditch this year with the family." She tried to sound disappointed by this news, as she knew Rose would have been.

"Why didn't she just give you Skele-gro?"

"Er…" By now she expected Rose's plans to be half-baked at best, but Holly couldn't believe that she hadn't thought of how flimsy an excuse a broken foot would be to a family full of wizards. "They're much more into muggle medicine, at Beauxbatons," she improvised quickly. "And since it's started healing the muggle way, I can't just take the potion now."

Ron groaned. "What am I supposed to do without my team's star chaser?" he asked teasingly.

"Well, you'll carry the team, of course," Holly returned lightly. "You won the Quidditch Cup when you played chaser for Gryffindor."

"Twice, in fact, but I played keeper." Ron turned and gave her a curious look, but thankfully shrugged off her faux pas. "I think all this mountain air has gone to your head. Let's get you home."

"That sounds wonderful," Holly said, and it really, really did.

"Chaser, honestly," Ron laughed as they walked. "Wait until you tell Aunt Ginny."